3D visualisation

First create a terrain map view. The terrain map view tool creates a hill shading layer and drapes it over the DEM data coloured with an elevation colour scheme.

USE:

Geoprocessing > Visualization > Grid >Terrain Map View

Select the DEM grid system and the DEM grid.

Make the contour lines 250m

Click OK.

You will see three new data layers appear in the data tab and the terrain view appears in the display window and the map tab.

Explore how the map layers are they arranged in the map tab. Look in the settings tab to determine which layer has a transparency setting?

We can view any elevation data, as long as it is not in a lat-long projection, in 3D. this can be very useful to understand the terrain context of any data you are looking at. To do this make sure you have the data you want to visualize in 3D displayed in your map window then click the 3D button. Set you elevation data, the display resolution and exaggeration. Setting a display resolution of 1000 will produce a good quality view without using too much computing resources. The exaggeration setting increases the vertical axis, making tis around 4 should produce a good view.

We can change the DEM display exaggeration with the keyboard keys F1 and F2. Or on the tool area by enlarging the exaggeration as shown:

To save the 3-D image before, click 3D View> Save as Image.

Then specify where these files are stored and specify the desired image format (in this example the image is stored on the Portable Network Graphics format * .PNG).